Cliché
by Hakhin
Summary: There's no doubt in the world that he loves her and probably will until the day he dies. Its cliché and he knows it, but it's all he's got in this world and he'll be damned if he doesn't hold onto it with everything he's got. Clint/Natasha


**A/N:** It's all the Avenger's fault! After reading a few fanfiction stories, mainly about Tony/Pepper, I happened to come across one with a Clint/Natasha pairing in it and after reading that and remembering what they both went through in the movie, I suddenly fell in love with their story. I'm an obsessive freak when it comes to fictional characters sometime. So anyway, after a week of reading story after story, after story and more stories of Clint/Natasha, I've finally decided to write one. Hopefully I haven't overused the word 'cliche'...

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There's no doubt in the world that he loves her and probably will until the day he dies. Its cliché and he knows it, but it's all he's got in this world and he'll be damned if he doesn't hold onto it with everything he's got.

Tony's interrogated them on occasions when they've been apart, occasions when they're actually together in the same room and before, during and after missions too. But every single time they've denied it, not because they wanted to maintain the level of professionalism in the work place, but more so for the sake of pissing him off more than anything. There's a certain satisfaction that one gets from side stepping Tony, and he knows she gets the majority of the kick out of it, so for a while he plays along because when she's happy, he's happy and that's all that really matters.

He starts off by telling himself that it's because he's just that kind of guy.

The type that would cross worlds, jump buildings, dive without a parachute and pretty much everything else that meant stepping relatively close to deaths door step all for her. He's just that kind of guy that loved her enough to drop by the stores to pick up her womanly items even though he knows she could easily do it herself since the closest 7/11 store was exactly 4 minutes and 23 seconds away if you counted the elevator ride too. He's just the type that held her close at night, offering her his warmth and protection even though he knew that between them she could protect them both without so much of a blink of an eye.

He's just that cliché sort of guy that'll love her until the end of time and maybe a little bit more after that too. He's the kind that'll give his life for her without so much as a split second thought because loving her was enough of a reason to do so. He's also the kind of guy that knew her well enough to know that given the opportunity, she would do the same without another thought because she, in her own way was just as cliché as he was when it came to love.

He knows it because it's in her eyes when she looks at him. It's in that small smile of hers that she keeps and shows to him and only him when nobody else is watching. It's in the way she touches his hand and intertwines her fingers with his when they're alone in the room with nobody else to bear witness to her when she is at her most vulnerable. It's in the tone she uses when she's reminding him how much she loves him before a mission, or when she's telling him to be careful in the midst of a mission, or when she's telling him that she's rather livid at him for putting his life on the line for her, again, when they're battered and bruised after a mission.

He loves her more than life itself and he knows it's still cliché because now a days he's so much unlike the man he was many years ago. He's not that kind of guy that killed without thought and went through missions like Tony went through alcohol. He wasn't the kind of guy that cared about the red in his ledger or the fact that his hands, though cleaned, were stained and ruined with so much blood. He isn't the sort of guy that really cared about anything or anyone at all.

But now here he was, loving her like there was no tomorrow. Here he was revelling in the fact that he had something, someone, her, to love and to cherish for all of eternity. Here he was embracing, welcoming this feeling, this need and desire and want, all for her. It was his ultimate weakness and he knew it like he knew that the sky was blue. But it was okay because it only made him fight harder and stronger for her, for him, for them and after years of trying to find something worth fighting for, here it was and he'll be damned if he ever let it go that easily.

For a while, it was okay to just love her and touch her and remind her how much he loved her when they were alone. It was all okay to shift to their professional relationship when they were with the others to their intimate relationship when they were alone in their room late at night when everybody else had long gone to bed.

But it wasn't okay when a particular mission threaded closer to home. It wasn't okay when his heart began to skip beats and when his hands started to get sweaty and clammy. It all wasn't okay when the idea and multitude of thoughts drew to one single conclusion, that a life without her was a colourless life not worth living at all.

It's only then when he's standing on the side skirts of the city watching her fall that the deal seals itself in his head. It's only in that split second where for a moment he thinks he's about to lose it all that he knows that they've gone too far with the whole notion. It's only then that he tells himself with a specific kind of certainty that he will kiss her and remind her how much he loves her without care of an audience when they embark on their next mission. It's then that he knows that there won't be another day when they're careful to play their roles when they're with the others. They'll be lovers and act like lovers, because Tony be damned, they were going to just be humans too.

She escapes, slightly bruised and battered, mostly thanks to the Hulk's quick thinking. It was funny, he thought, that something that had once scared her became the one thing that saved her from her inevitable doom. But his thoughts vanished quickly when he met her eyes and suddenly knew with clear certainty that something in her had changed in that moment. It was almost as if an entire gravitational shift had occurred between them when they suddenly became more aware of how much their displays of affection were needed more than anything without care of an audience.

He's holding her before he fully comprehends it and he's closed his eyes before he tells himself he shouldn't. It's all so cliché and he knows it, but it all doesn't matter because she's shaking in his arms and he knows why. It's the little life that's growing inside her that she had been thinking off. It was that little thing that they created, that he only found out about this morning and he knows that she's worrying about what he might think even though he'll tell her later that he doesn't because despite that he's always worrying about her. But it's nice to know that she worries about things like that. It's nice to know that he has that effect on her because with anybody and everybody else she's the Black Widow, but with him she's just, human.

He's holding her and he knew that all of sundry stared and watched. He knew their friends and comrades well enough to know that they probably had bids on them of when they were actually going to come clean about this whole thing. They were close to announcing it after the whole Loki incident but when they discovered the kicks they got out of side stepping Tony, they only delayed the inevitable.

He looked into her eyes and he knew without doubt that his love for her was absolute. He knew that things would probably be different from now on. That they could actually steal kisses in the hallway, or hold hands without caring whether Tony's security cameras would pick up on their displays of affection. He knew that Fury would formally comment on it later, even though the director already knew about this long before anybody else ever did. He also knew that Tony would joke at them about it, and poke fun at them for being as cheesy as a chick flick despite their super master spy/assassin titles.

But it was all okay, just like it was okay that when they returned to base later she would speak to the others to let them know that he is more to her than anything or anybody in her life ever was. He knows it because its in the look she directed to him when she whispered to him that it's okay because they're okay and that's all that matters. He knows that later on their friends and comrades will congratulate them whilst having dinner at that Shawarma restaurant again. He also knows that they will also be more than willing, if not demanding that she sat out on future missions until at least the baby was born. But he knows that they will also not argue with her when she demanded to at least be comm control when they're in the field, so that in her own way she was still able to help out too.

Her love is what his love is, as cliché as love ever came.


End file.
